You know those people who go to "expos" and huge "conferences"? (Yes I'm also referring to Star Trek conventions... I mean I DID bring up that I am a fan last post). I was always pretty sure they were UBER committed. Like it was a SIGN when you attended one of these. Kinda like when my dad used to drag us to Ducks Unlimited... Or when we got tipsy and went to the "sexpo" in Montreal (THAT was a kick!).This past Sunday Halifax hosted an "eco-expo", and we went. I am not officially a geek, not only did we go but I actually ranted to a few vendors!! AND I took pictures for all you lovely peeps! Sad, I know.
(awesome F150 extended cab "eco" truck outside the expo. NICE)
Speaking of sad, I'm pretty sure, even though I haven't been to any eco-expos before (I swear!) that this one was pretty darn... sparse. However, in true maritime style there was local BEER (yum) and huge displays of whales.
Yep, although the entire event was powered by Bullfrog sustainably sourced power, I thought it was a bit much to have GIANT blown up, nylon whales hanging out. Still couldn't resist running through while trying to look disdainful and NOT like I was having fun. At all. (ok, I am excited to run through...)Probably my favourite parts of the expo were in this order:
1. No-water Urinals. YES- nestled in a tiny display with scooters and some other thing (really, after the urinals who cares?) were these sans-water urinals. I totally wanted to take a picture, but became quite self-conscious when the lady saw us prance up excitedly and proceeded to inform us on the environmental benefits of using gravity instead of water to bring the urine down. Only downside- weird replaceable plastic deal that needs to be thrown out every so six months. I was THIS close to taking a picture of Andrew and the urinal, but chickened out. The lady had flare that said: "Pee Green"...
2. Meeting Deux Fm designer. Almost felt like meeting a famous person. Seriously fantastic clothing. She even said she had been sneaking out back to do the "baby- p-u-m-p thing" all afternoon.
3. Getting free stuff from Green Beaver rep. It was fun as he obviously was not from the maritimes, talked fast and was a sales rep to the nines. He thought it was hilarious that every time he told people to "try some lip balm" they took cautious hand-dabs with the testers and didn't get that he meant take a FREE ONE. I guess in Toronto they grab the entire display. Oh polite Maritimers. (free vegan lipbalm!)4. Chatting with the lady from HRM's organics systems. I got to be all annoying and ask her why bio-plastics and "compostable" coffee cups weren't being accepted into the municipality's compost system. She had some pretty interesting insights, which I will blog about in more detail in the near future. I also *told* on the local companies and their theories of passive overloading... She was not pleased.
5. Chatting with the ladies from Olivier Soap company. I heard them speaking French and moseyed on over with Jen. After a few translation moments Jen pointed out that I spoke French... which led to some confused and sheepish explanations as to why my accent was weird enough that I was just speaking in English. Seems that the ladies from Ste Anne New Brunswick were having NONE of that. So after I finally caved and started my "montreal" hard earned accent and gave a few examples of "par-en-bas" French they kinda stopped harassing me. Really, two years of things like asking the GAP lady to "arrumer mon manteau" (who knew that arrumer was the archaic way of saying "arranger"???) I was tired of explaining myself. (stern unhappy face at the air generator for the giant waste of energy)This soap company has a fantastic website and is all hand made. I bought some shampoo in the HOPES that it would fare better than BISH has so far. I KNOW, I was all excited about BISH.... but sadly this has failed along with the rest and has been delegated to awesome body wash.
I'm giving this new shampoo a week and will update you all on the entire affair.
So, the end result was this minimal "booty" (I refused a LOT of paper hand outs and was especially disgusted by the Majesta plastic wrapped individual TP) including yummy local "winter" beer and a sticker... and a feeling like "YEA" I'm doing my part. I even got to snag a new yoga card although the Yogini wasn't around... Halima!Weird but true. Perhaps I would have enjoyed the craziness of a Star Trek convention better. At least I could have dressed up.... lol.
Yes for nerd-dom. And if you needed any further validation of how nerdom=awesome, check out this fantastical video- nerds vs jocks at some presidential dealy. I laughed out loud several times... please tell me I wasn't the only one?
Blessings!
article and photos copyright of EcoYogini at ecoyogini.blogspot.com
Loved this blog post and loved the jocks vs. nerds video at the end.
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Bob Weisenberg
YogaDemystified.com
I would love to meet the Green Beaver folks in person after years of using some of their products. Olivier's is awesome. They have a store at the mall in Moncton; I was at said store on the weekend.
ReplyDeleteI would have loved to have attended an event like this!! I'm hoping they will have some in our area this coming year, since it's such a hot topic right now.
ReplyDeleteBut man, I HATE it when they make something green and then cover it in plastic, or use lots of energy to power their promotional toys. Ugh!
In any case, it sounds very cool, and free lip balm, too! Wahoo!
embrace your enviro-nerdiness! as somebody who has been to more than a few yoga conferences (along with magazine conferences, and more recently blogging/podcasting/social media conferences), i accept my nerd side. would really like to go to science-con, or a manga/anime expo, just for the excuse to dress up!
ReplyDeletei love this post, and i also love how you subtly point out the contradictions of the eco-expo.
Too bad it was on Sunday! I totally would have gone! I will keep my eyes peeled for next time! :)
ReplyDeleteI wish I lived in a bilingual country! We are so isolationist down here. :( But the expo sounds like such fun! We went to one here (GreenFest) last year and it was great. They had free yoga, too!
ReplyDeleteOh yay! I love Olivier soaps! Their hand soap is the only thing that stopped Matt's hands from cracking and bleeding all last winter.
ReplyDeleteAlso they make the Roots Skin stuff, and one of their dudes (I think his name was Samuel?) came to all the stores to explain how they make it by hand from all natural stuff, etc. etc. Then he actually started eating out of one of the jars of skin cream to show how natural it was! Then he poured olive oil on his head and talked about how great olive oil was. Oh man, I loved him.
Also, Acadian French is super weird! Apparently it's a dialect from the 1600s and hasn't really changed since then. So you get weird things like pronouncing the ch in chemise as a kh sound. Okay I'm going to stop typing now I promise!
Its cool you are doing this and reporting back on it!
ReplyDeleteEmbrace the inner geek. I completley do!
Jen